Delivering on Fresh: @BarismoBike

Delivering on Fresh: bike.barismo.com's Jackie Coolican, manager of barismo's coffee shipments and (literally) the driving force behind our cargo bike system.

bike.barismo is the driving force behind our local coffee supply chain.  The majority of the coffee we roast is provided to our partners via cargo bicycle for next day delivery.  Our approach (although maybe not too common in the Boston community yet!) allows us to connect with our partners in person on a weekly basis. Face-to-face interactions let us build and maintain close relationships with the coffee people we know, community we live in, and bike the neighborhoods we love. This unique delivery model allows us to focus on local employment.  Instead of recruiting big businesses like a FedEx or UPS to do our delivering for us, we see a new possibility the community has provided us. In addition to that, another perk is the reduced carbon footprint we (don't) leave.  The many costs that come with shipping, such as the fuel used in transporting such amounts of coffee and the waste of shipping material (boxes, plastic wrappings, etc.) are avoided through the use of the bicycle.  Shipping centers and cardboard boxes don't improve quality anyways.

-Follow the freshness with @BarismoBike - bike.barismo.com

Evaluating for Quality: barismo's founder and GM, Jaime van Schyndel breaks down why the support of cafe owners/managers is the driving force behind what we do.

At some point, every small coffee bar asks customers to support them as the local independent option.  As an independent regional roaster, we have in turn asked these same local coffee bars to support us for similar reasons.  Just like a coffee shop asks you to shop local, a roaster looks for support in the manufacture local model.  It has it's benefits in quality control, relationship building, and reduced shipping costs/carbon foot print, but it takes an investment in change to get there.

We at barismo feel like it's becoming more of a common sense argument for how to build a sustainable business.  We get the added benefits while continuing to support an expanding coffee community we are actively living and working in.  It is not without it's hurdles, but I have come to realize the cafes we work with are the real keys to our success.  They have the courage to step up and get involved in a quality driven model built on solid relationships and the need for participation at every level.  Their involvement is supporting us to go farther, dig deeper, and invest more at every step.  We have been humbled and are thankful for the support the community has provided us over the years.

While this coffee community grows, we are working to be a guiding force for quality and transparency.  Staying true to our mission statement, investing in farm level relationships, improving quality every year, and attempting to avoid the pitfalls of doing things just because they are trendy.  What makes this possible is having partners that are willing to go along with us in this journey.

This week, while you are around town, dropping into your local coffee shop, do us a favor and tell them thanks for being a part of this process.  - @jaime_vans


Keep it local Arlington, MA: barismo's original location is going through some changes, Rob Rodriguez gives us some hints as to the future of 171 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA.

In case you are wondering, the coffee bar at 171 Mass Ave in Arlington, MA isn't going anywhere.  With all the changes going on over here while Barismo roasting moves into Somerville, it’s been easy to overlook some of the many changes that will happen here in Arlington. In particular, our location in Arlington is to experience a metamorphosis. What does that mean for the coffeebar at 171 Mass. Ave.?

To put it simply, a lot.

I believe it means a significantly new sense of identity for the space. While much of what makes Barismo unique is inherently a part of the roastery, the ability to express a love and fascination with coffee is essential to our work here in Arlington. Our focus here will be to reach back to the roots of what defined barismo to begin with. The ability for customers to enter the shop with a renewed sense of excitement and engage a barista about coffee is paramount. Just as important will be to impart a new conceptual outlook, while making sure the coffeebar’s environment is warm and appealing.

In the meantime, we got approval last year for outdoor seating.  As the weather gets nicer, we'll be putting seats out on the 'patio'.  Drop by as we've got Cambridge Coldbrew coffee in bottles and soon to be on tap at 171.  We also have a twitter account dedicated to us, check it out for updates on hours and last minute changes.

- Stay updated Arlington @CoffeeBar171

La Bandera De Dota - The Flag Bearer of Tarrazu

On the Ground: barismo's roaster Chris Malarick reports from Costa Rica to share developments with partners at Exclusive Coffees. Chris' update starts with the introduction of a new farm in Costa Rica that's small size matches up well to our model. Stay tuned for more info as we build up to the arrival of this years lots.

As it's name implies, La Bandera de Dota sits atop a mountain like a flag reigning over it's farms that cover the hillsides from 1875-1920 meters in the microregion of Dota in Tarrazu. It's Diego Hidalgo Umana's first year running his own micromill and farming the land himself.  This is land his father had farmed before him since 1976, but he's made sure not to suffer the growing pains and experience the learning mistakes that often riddle a producer's first year processing their own cherry. 

I first met Diego at the cupping lab of Exclusive Coffees. Producers are always coming and going, dropping off samples to be evaluated and offered by Exclusive. They are checking up on how their produce is scoring and getting feedback or simply attempting to talk with traveling buyers and the Exclusive staff. I was cupping my morning table, finishing up my score sheet when Diego came over and asked how I liked the coffees. I told him overall the table was pretty good, but Number 13 was standing out as I liked it very much. Diego blushed and his face filled with a smile as he humbly told me that was his coffee. "It's my first year. I'm very excited! But I still have a lot to learn". I shook his hand and told him he was doing a wonderful job, and then immediately arranged  to visit him on my trip to Tarrazu in a day or so.

Diego has 24 acres of well groomed red and yellow Catuai/Caturra that he processes exclusively using a fully washed wet processing method. Once the cherries are picked at peak ripeness and pulped to remove all of the cherry skins from the parchment, they are then wet fermented to remove the sticky fruit mucilage.  After that, the beans hit the drying phase, something Diego has thought out very thoroughly. All of his coffees are dried in a greenhouse using a tiered system. He has 90 beds with 11 racks that stack in sets 3 deep. Coffees spend 10 days on the top rack and 2 weeks divided between the two bottom racks.  This slows down the drying processing, fostering more structure to the coffee which in turn gives it a longer "green life" once the coffee is in our storage. Everything is clearly labeled and organized as all of the data is collected on a central board at the helm of the greenhouse.

Diego's dedication to impeccable picking, processing and drying procedures makes him a perfect partner for Barismo. Not only does his mentality ensure that quality coffees will be grown, but that quality dialogues will be had. This is why we do this. We're more than excited to see Diego grow as we work with him in the years to come, and we're equally excited to share his beautiful coffees with you as well. -@gastronomin

From barismo to barismonauts: Jaime VanSchyndel gives you a look in on an event at barismo's new Somerville location at The Aeronaut Hub, as well as an introspective look at the local industry and our neighbors. Stay tuned for more updates and opportunities to see the new space!

Last Thursday night, barismo hosted an industry event where we gathered a group of our local coffee professional peers. The goal of the event was to get together a unique cross section of local coffee shop owners and barista in one location and just talk.  The guise of the night was definitely to introduce them to our new space, but inevitability it really became a discussion about how far this industry has come locally. 

So what did we learn?

My goal going into this event was to engage the community and have a discussion. This discussion would be about sharing where we've been and why we moved into Somerville.  The end goal was to answer, where do we go from here?  A discussion about sustainability, quality, and what local means to us is only valuable if others are willing to engage in that discussion.  After a long weekend to digest how these conversations were useful, I realized that they offered us some real feedback to guide our internal dialogue as coffee professionals about how to move barismo forward.

We learned that a select few people are locked in to their way of doing things to what may ultimately be a fault.  We could come back in five years and expect their shops to still be doing the same exact things regardless of how the community changes.  In spite of that, we also learned that the true majority of coffee pros locally are really excited to explore and are looking forward to what the next phase of our local scene could become.  Being an independent shop though is really hard and it takes a lot of time and energy to make any changes towards any new direction. This really represented the majority of people who came to the event and therefore defines our thinking about us as a roastery supporting them.

I also learned this local coffee pro community is bigger and stronger than I had expected going into that event. They showed up and were willing to talk freely about where they think the community is and where they think it's going. It clarified that indy shops have the motivation to do big things. Since I know for a fact that you don't have to be a big chain or a national company to put out quality products, it means these local shops have a lot of potential.

Excited as I am, the same obstacles that every indy shop faces slows down our community.  Time, money, and the energy to move forward are always in short supply when you run your own business.

For us, it's time to digest what we're learning and define the goals going forward.  Some of what we do to support coffee shops already builds on what we feel are basic solutions in training and organization.  Some of it is simply getting more barista to acknowledge coffee customers who choose independent shops over chains are more likely to learn and grow as the shop does.  A big part of what needs to change in our local coffee scene is also messaging. What I have come to realize is that we are at another turning point where the community may grow and improve a lot the next few years.  If the free discussions and shared knowledge we saw Thursday night continues, the end result will be better coffee in our area. - @jaime_vans

Stay Fresh Updates: Events, classes and education, new coffees, and much more. Sign up for updates here! We have a ton of events coming up as you can see, remember to follow us on twitter as well for up to the minute info. 

Make Time for Introspection

I first discovered barismo in August 2009 when the company was just shy of one year old. I had heard inklings about this, then new, Boston area coffee roaster aiming to roast quality coffee and I was intrigued. The Arlington roastery back then was a quite place, but the coffees shared were excellent, and the level of conversation about the coffee was serious. I was interested in learning as much as I could, and everyone at barismo was interested in sharing that knowledge.

barismo has always been about ideas. Perhaps that is what drew me in initially, those ideas definitely kept me coming back, and eventually brought me into the company fulltime. March 2011 is when I did one of my first projects, it was the barismo wordmark hand-cut out of black vinyl lettering on an acrylic panel. This was barismo's first real 'sign' in the Arlington location after almost two and a half years of operation.

A little over two years later I find myself in a new roasting space in Somerville, in a more mature company, surrounded by a wider community that has excitement for the ideas that first brought me into the company. And here I am creating another barismo sign.

Just like the first, this one is made by hand, black 'barismo' letters painted on a white wall at the Somerville space. As coffee roasters I think we have always considered ourselves people who make things and we have an enourmous amount of satisfaction from the fact that we make this product right here in the local community, for our community.

Those two signs that I made are both quite simple in concept. Similarly our message as a coffee roaster has always been simple yet profound: transparency, quality, freshness. These shape our decision making at every step of the way, we are constantly moving ahead, and ever introspective.

As I finish the final touches on the sign and the new space, is a poignant time to reflect on how barismo has grown in the last couple of years that I have been with the company. Beyond all of the experience and knowledge that barismo has imparted thus far, I have solidified two lifelong habits that others here reiterate:

• I know that I will always make things.
• I will always be introspective about what it means to support that ethos.

Coffee is amazingly complex and enjoyable, both drinking it and learning more about it. Of course I happen to love the coffee barismo puts out there and feel ever critical to refine and make it better. However I do not encourage anyone to simply adopt brand loyalty for barismo. I think those who have found barismo love the way the coffee tastes and the ideas that we operate under just happen to really resonate. make things...think about it. - @timborrego



Stay Fresh Updates: Events, classes and education, new coffees, and much more. Sign up for updates here! We have a ton of events coming up as you can see, remember to follow us on twitter as well for up to the minute info. 

Stay tuned for Classes at barismo's new space at
The Aeronaut Hub, 14 Tyler St, Somerville MA 
We'll be re-launching our education programs this spring at our new roastery location at The Aeronaut Hub in Union Square, Somerville. All our classes are taught by our knowledgeable and experienced baristas. Our new class list will offer expanded content during weekend afternoons. More details coming soon. Check Here for Updates!